


all you have, is your fire

by weepingalpacafuneral



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Catholic Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Kid Matt Murdock, M/M, Matt Murdock Angst, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Song: Arsonist's Lullabye (Hozier), Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingalpacafuneral/pseuds/weepingalpacafuneral
Summary: Part of the 2020 Defenders and Daredevil Exchange!Written for Writing_Puffin (ao3)/Puffins-studio (tumblr) who has some absolutely beautiful felt art on tumblr and some great fics on ao3 and is also just a really nice person, so go check them out!This is based on their prompt Arsonist's Lullaby, by Hozier.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	all you have, is your fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writing_Puffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Puffin/gifts).



> Content warnings:  
> Daredevil TV show canon typical violence, character death, injury, ect.  
> Matt is mentioned as a child soldier.  
> A conversation about ableism.  
> A character has a panic attack, which is not described in detail.

Did you know that if an extremely Catholic nine year old by both blood, persuasion, and environment hears voices, he will think some pretty messed up shit?

Did you know that that shit gets worse when the extremely Catholic nine year old becomes an extremely Catholic orphan, and then an extremely Catholic child soldier?

Things don't go well for the hypothetical extremely Catholic nine year old orphan child soldier. Things go even worse when it isn't hypothetical anymore, when it's the very real and very tragic life of Matthew Micheal Murdock. 

\--

His dad used to sing, sometimes. After he would come home from the gym, pour a glass of whiskey and turn on the radio. He would hum along, most often. But sometimes he would sing to Matt. Little lullabies as old as the tenements and almost as small, the remnants of the only Gaelic Jack Murdock ever knew. 

In the first months at the orphanage, Matt would hear it in the cacophony and the screams of the city. Shards of Gaelic murmured in a whiskey rough voice of a dead boxer, a dead father. 

He cried differently when he heard it. Not so much for the pain of the noise that he cried for most often, the sheer volume of the city, but for the little trickles of his father's voice and the language he might have learned in a kinder world, a kinder New York.

\--

"Are you even really blind?"

"I- it's hard to explain. It's like a world on fire."

If Matt could see he would probably be seeing an incredulous Foggy gawking at him. But he can't, he can only imagine it.

"It's- like I can see some variations in light? And the rest of the senses sort of fill in too? To create sort of a rough map? I can't read, obviously, I can't see colors and stuff. I actually am blind. And even then "blindness" can mean all sorts of different vision impairments that fall within the limits of diagnosable or legal blindness."

If Matt could see, he thinks he would see a slightly sheepish Foggy. But he can't, so he can only hear the sheepishness in his voice and the way he runs his hand through his hair when he's nervous.

"You're right, that was kind of shitty and ableist."

\--

The Devil was in the sewers because the Albanians decided to set up shop in the wonderful real estate that is the literal sewers to store their drugs. He doesn't like the sewers- although, who does? But he really doesn't like the sewers, because it plays havoc with his nose, and even the endless echoes of pipes and causeways and too-thick water make it hard to focus, hard to navigate. 

He's just about to call it a day when a boat speeds past, splashing him with what he hopes is water but it's just a little too viscous and too smelly and he's nine again, covered in a chemical cocktail of who knows what at the site of a car crash, and everything is too caustic, too much for him to deal with, and by the time it's over, by the time the Devil has gone away and Matty Murdock, the little kid is left lying shivering on a sewer causeway by a particularly nasty panic attack.

When he gets back to his apartment he sits in the shower and rubs his skin red to get rid of the lingering smell, even when Foggy and Karen can't smell anything, even when he can't tell if it's the actual smell that's lingering or the memory.

\--

The Devil isn't actually the Devil, he's Daredevil right now, because Spiderman invited himself along on a patrol, citing a lack of "good bad guys" in Queens because the Avengers were in town. Daredevil is on the roofs and Spiderman is in the sky, or close to it, because whatever material the Spiderman costume is made of makes an absolutely atrocious whistling noise. He's jumping down off a roof to corner a mugger when a gun goes off. It doesn't hit anyone; goes straight into the ground, and the mug-ee runs off. Daredevil knocks the mugger out cold, trusting that someone will call the gunshot in to the police, but Spiderman is on the ground. 

"Spiderman?" Daredevil is professional. He's not the Devil, not with Spiderman. His voice is almost like the one he uses in court, with a touch of Superman, or Captain Planet, a cheesy 90's voice of authority. 

Daredevil doesn't get an answer. 

"Spiderman?" He tries again; there are worse things than repeating yourself. Still no answer, and Spiderman is still on the ground, but hyperventilating now.

Daredevil squats on the broken concrete next to Spiderman and waits until he gets a response. He doesn't get a response, not really. 

Spiderman murmurs something, "I thought it was him, again."

Daredevil isn't an idiot. The greater New York vigilante community aren't idiots. It's pretty well known that Spiderman is a kid. Probably in his late teens, most people hope. 

Matt isn't an idiot, and he isn't that hopeful either. He can tell when a child is trying to use some unfortunate power to change something they can't change.

"When I was a kid, they got my dad."

Spiderman looks up at him, the eyes of his mask wide and white and full of pain.

"Does it get better?"

Matt laughs short and miserably. "If it got better, would I be doing this?"

The eyes of Spiderman's mask squeeze shut again.

"Does it- Does it hurt less, is what I mean."

\--

It’s a year after Daredevil told Spiderman about what happened to Battlin’ Jack Murdock and Peter Parker and Matt Murdock are standing in front of a small weathered plaque that reads, at least to Peter, “Jonathan Murdock, Fighter, Father”. He tells Matt as much, and Matt leans down to touch the engraving even though the metal is bitingly cold in the winter morning.

Peter takes him to a different cemetery, across the city, where he lays flowers on the ground and tells Matt, when he enquires, that it says “Benjamin Parker, With great power comes great responsibility”.

\--

It’s spring, and for once the pollen is only minorly bothering Matt, and the smoke and smog of the city are nonexistent because he’s focused on something so much more important: his wedding.

Karen is fussing with his bowtie, and Sister- and Maggie is standing in the corner solemnly standing in the corner of the room. 

Pachabel’s Canon in D starts playing, because Matt is a romantic, when it comes down to it, even after everything, and Maggie links her arm with Matt’s and starts walking.

Matt can hear Foggy start crying not five steps away, and when Maggie helps him up to the altar, she’s crying too, just barely, and when Father Lantom addresses him- not him, them, because it’s always been Matt-and-Foggy, really, and now it really will be, in the most Catholic sense- Matt is crying too, and he and Foggy stumble their way through their vows, and if Matt was paying attention to the rest of the people in the chapel, he would know that Karen was crying, and Danny, and Trish, and that even Marci, and Jessica, and Frank were sniffling just a little bit. He wasn’t paying attention to them, though, because he was paying attention to Foggy, and only Foggy.

The last part of Foggy’s vows was something about “Avocados for life”, and then they were kissing, and they were married. They were married.

\--

The night before the ceremony, Foggy had taken Matt’s hands in his own.

“I know- I know you can’t stop. Being him. I know. And I’m so glad, that you’re safer, now. That you know that you have me. That you have- us, I guess. And I don’t- I don’t like it, because I love you, and I hate that you’re getting hurt, but I respect it, I respect you doing it. And I just-”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope yall enjoyed! This was really fun, and the first exchange I've done, and the DDE folks were great! I'm on tumblr at weepingalpacafuneral as always.


End file.
